


This was not in the job description

by selenityshiroi



Series: CCS!Kurogane and Fay [4]
Category: Cardcaptor Sakura
Genre: Gen, more kurogane in the ccs world, rating for kurogane's potty mouth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 16:41:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9770810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selenityshiroi/pseuds/selenityshiroi
Summary: He should have known that protecting Tomoyo would not be that simple. Dammit.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this next part took so long. I'm not normally someone who writes for fun so I only write when I'm inspired. But this series didn't leave my head so I eventually got this part out!

Kurogane knew that the fates were laughing at him.

Tomoyo was blinking at him innocently, camera casually held aloft like an afterthought, and a small polite smile suggesting that absolutely nothing was wrong with this situation. And, no, she hadn’t snuck away from him during the late showing of the movie she absolutely needed to see right this evening so yes, mother, she needed to go now and it really isn’t necessary for my bodyguard to accompany me to a public movie theatre but, sigh, if you insist.

The girl and boy she spent most of her free time with, however, were a completely different story.

The boy had dropped the, admittedly impressive, sword the moment Kurogane’s ‘you have got to be fucking kidding me’ had echoed across the empty park and was currently trying to subtly stamp out a small fire still blazing near his feet.

The girl was trying to hide a wand half her height behind her back whilst a lion...thing was trying to hide underneath the long trailing train of the, obviously Tomoyo designed, dress she was wearing as if the thing was actually the size of a kitten.

None of them seemed to notice that the weird flying snake youkai they had been trying to subdue, before he stumbled upon them, was recovering it’s wits and was hurtling back towards them.

‘Oh, for gods sake, deal with the damned lizard before you try to convince me that you weren’t playing with magic in the middle of the night!’

The boy recovered first, narrowing his eyes at Kurogane before grabbing his dropped sword and firing off an impressive bolt of lightning at the snake. But the girl stared at him a while longer, a soft and inquisitive gaze that reminded him of his mother’s uncanny ability to know your innermost thoughts and feelings before you had a chance to reconcile them yourself. He’d always wanted to hide when his mother did this, running from the magic he considered an intrusion and nuisance. But something about the girl made him want to bare his heart to her and keep her safe in return.

God, he was getting soft looking after a teenaged girl.

But the girl seemed satisfied with whatever she was looking for, because seconds later she was throwing pink cards in the air and summoning strange creatures from god knows where.

As Kurogane stepped closer to Tomoyo, making sure that the youkai was being steered clear of her and trying to resist the urge to dive into the fight going on before him, he realised that she was the last person who’s attention was still on him and not on the magic show going on several metres away. Although he did notice that her camera seemed to be nicely fixed on the action.

‘You seem remarkably calm, Kurogane-san.’

Tomoyo’s soft voice was as polite and gentle as always, and didn’t hold any demands for him to explain himself. But her very bearing, inherited no doubt from her mother, practically screamed that he had better tell her everything right this instance. He resisted, just long enough to watch the girl in front summon wings (Wings! What the hell?!?) and take to the air to try and combat the youkai’s swift, erratic movements. But he liked Tomoyo. He may have been paid to protect her, but in the short time he’d been her bodyguard he had acquired a great deal of respect for her compassion, tenacity and, to be honest, her sneakiness and gentle manipulations hidden under a layer of formality and polite smiles. So his resistance didn’t so much as crumble as he brushed it off and answered her with as much honesty as he felt comfortable sharing.

‘This isn’t the first brush I’ve had with magic.’ Her eyebrow delicately raised, and her lack of prodding for more information practically guaranteed he would give in and spill a little extra. ‘I know a seeress back home and I used to hunt youkai and try to settle the local yourei in my free time. I’ve had some training in sensing these things.’

Tomoyo’s eyebrow that refused to lower betrayed her interest in the subject, but she merely increased her smile a touch more, indicating that she was content with his answer for now.

‘I think you’ll find that there is no shortage of those things in Tomoeda.’ She didn’t elaborate more, but returned her full attention to the teenagers, working in remarkable tandem, who seemed to be coming out on top against the snake beast. Kurogane couldn’t help but be impressed, the spiritual energy coming from the youkai was not insignificant. But when he tried to focus on the magical energy of the girl, to get a gauge of her, his eyes started to water and his head began to pound.

Too powerful. Much too powerful. He had no idea how he’d managed to overlook this level of magic when he’d been near the girl before, but he suspected that she was skilled at concealing it. The boy, too, when he diverted his attention, felt like white noise in his ears and he focused instead on how he swung his sword and maneuvered his way around the unexpected battlefield. There was skill there, honed to a level he wouldn’t have expected from the boy who had, until now, seemed rather shy and unassuming in their brief interactions. He certainly didn’t seem like the boy who he’d seen Tomoyo turn into a blushing mess, with a whispered comment he hadn’t been able to catch from his place watching over his charge. That boy didn’t look like he could drive a sword through a youkai’s body to pin it to the ground whilst his partner laid her hands on the beast and seemed to enchant it down from it’s rage.

He watched as the girl seemed to purify the energy swirling from the youkai and then, like nothing untoward had been going on, the snake dissolved into light and the four of them, and that strange lion that was still hovering close to the girl, were alone in the park.

All three children swiveled their gaze onto him, bracing themselves for whatever questions or scoldings any other adult would probably be throwing their way.

Fuck that. He knew better than to stand in the way of people who could handle magic and swords that well. They knew what the fuck they were doing. 

‘Don’t run off on your own without telling me. Don’t desert me if I’m with you. Don’t lie to me about what you need to do. Keep to those rules and I won’t tell Daidouji.’

The boy glared at him, eyes narrowing at any such condition being placed on him whilst Tomoyo and the girl exchanged looks, silently communicating as to what they should do. He ignored them and focused on the boy, for now.

‘Kid, you’re good. But if you need someone to practice your sword work with then I’m always up for a sparring partner.’ He suspected that the kid would respond better to this than to words, a way for him to test Kurogane and get a feel for him before he trusted him. Judging from the way that he relaxed slightly, but still, Kurogane noted, standing between him and the girl, it seemed he’d made the right move. But he didn’t respond to his offer, choosing instead to turn his gaze to the girl, waiting for her reaction.

She stepped towards him, staff still in hand and wings still fluttering out behind her, making her look both delicate and unworldly powerful, and he didn’t miss the lion creature land beside her and keep one small pace behind. When she was close enough she bowed slightly, looking like royalty with the graceful motion and the way Tomoyo’s dress fell to the floor around her and when she met his gaze she looked at him like a benevolent Empress greeting a subject.

He swore that the entire world shifted under his feet, like some aspect of the universe had fallen into place.

‘Kurogane-san?’ Her tone was questioning, as if she was confirming that she was allowed to call him by the name he had insisted that Tomoyo use. He nodded at her, encouraging her to continue. ‘It’s very nice to meet you properly. Thank you for taking care of Tomoyo-chan.’ There was a power to her words, he could feel it. He wasn’t sure if she was conscious of it or not, but he could feel the very air around him breathing her gratitude into his lungs and pumping it into his very blood. No matter the run around they’d been giving him since he took over as Tomoyo’s bodyguard, he knew this girl valued Tomoyo’s life and didn’t begrudge him trying to protect her.

‘That’s my job, princess.’ The name was supposed to be mocking. It’s not like he could remember the girl’s name and it looked like Tomoyo had put a tiara in her damned hair. But the moment it came out of his mouth he knew he probably wouldn’t call her anything else.

Still, she blushed a little.

‘My name is Kinomoto Sakura. And that is Li Syaoran.’ She looked back to the kid, still poised as if to leap forward at any time and put himself between himself and the little princess. But he’d at least sheathed the sword. ‘We know you probably have lots of questions…’

He cut her off with a raised hand and a single shake of his head, and she stood there with wide eyes and her mouth still slightly open.

‘You have magic. You use your magic for the good of all mankind. You want said magic to be a secret.’ This much was all very obvious from this single evening. ‘Listen, princess, I don’t like magic all that much and I could have damn well done with not moving to some sort of spiritual nexus and getting assigned to the friend of a girl who sprouts wings and flies and a boy who calls lightning from a sword.’ The wings dissolved, almost guiltily, and he watched a pink card fly into her hand. ‘But protecting people is what I do. And if protecting Tomoyo means that I have to make sure none of you get eaten by a monster and I have to make sure to dodge fireballs in the woods at night then so be it.’

Tomoyo looked amused, now, like she was proud of making his life that much more difficult and prouder to have gotten away with it and he rolled his eyes a little. The brat.

‘Can we just get back to the car, now, so I can take you all home? The movie should have ended by now and it would be easier to keep this all from Daidouji if we didn’t have to make excuses for you getting home much later than you should have.’

The kids all nodded at each other and he watched as the lion shrank into a tiny stuffed animal shaped thing that flew into his face, forcing him to lean back slightly so as to not have it fly directly into his nose. It seemed to glare at him a little before flying off to the princess, whining something about wanting cake.

This evening had been a fucking piece of work. He knew he should have rang his mother back when he missed her call earlier. She would have probably warned him.

As they made their way back to the car, Tomoyo circling the princess with her camera and chattering about how nicely the train of the dress had moved, the kid sidled up to him.

‘Did you mean what you said about a sparring partner?’

The kid wasn’t looking up at him, instead watching the princess blush at Tomoyo’s enthusiastic flattery, but he could feel the seriousness behind the question. He wasn’t sure if the kid was taking him at face value yet or was intending on testing and interrogating him on his own, safely away from the two girls. But Kurogane was happy to humour the kid.

‘I was, I’ve got a few National Kendo Championships to my belt and am well versed in other weapons.’ The kid’s gaze swung back to him, surprised and a little impressed. ‘How about we meet back here at 6am on Sunday morning and you can take a swing at me?’

‘5am. People walk their dogs through the park quite early and I wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt.’

He got the feeling that the kid wasn’t trying to take control of the meeting as a show of power but genuinely was worried about getting anyone else caught up in their sparring match.

‘Besides, Sakura would never manage to get out of bed that early on a Sunday and if she’s not there then Tomoyo won’t bother trying to film it.’

Kurogane scoffed back a laugh. He liked the kid.

**Author's Note:**

> I had to get 'kid' and 'princess' in there somehow. I couldn't imagine Kurogane calling them anything else.
> 
> Fay will eventually turn up. But with how long it took me to get this part out, please forgive me for how long it'll probably take till I get there...
> 
> Also, I imagine that things like youkai and yourei (malevolent and benevolent spirits) exist in the CCS world and they would be attracted to all the magical energy in Tomoeda. So the kids end up dealing with them quite often (Sakura refuses to kill them so she kind of showers them in love with her magic till they purify and move on).


End file.
